Thursday, April 18. 2013

I've recently accepted a job in Seattle. There is no better time for me to move: the kids are all the correct ages to change schools along with a bunch of other new students. Sequestration hit the government simulation industry the day after I left: the project had to arrange for furloughs. (The title is what my wife said when she heard about the furloughs. She's awesome.) The housing market is starting to look up in Florida, so my house might sell easily.

My wife is staying behind with the kids to sell the house and finish out the school year. I miss them, so I've been taking a few pictures of Seattle as I walk to work.

I resigned on Wednesday. I was scheduled to fly on Saturday. That gave me two days to relax... or to leave behind something valuable for people I love.

One of our family friends has an autistic child. He loves to swing, but they can't afford a swingset. We were going to give them ours, but it's more than ten years old, and when we tried to pull it up, we discovered that it had become one with the ground. (We'll have to figure out some way to get that down to the dump.)

But the plastic slide, two-person glider, and rings were still in good condition. All they needed was a framework to hang on. I estimated $50 in wood and offered to build it.

Friday, March 8. 2013

Gotta love mitre saws. Chopped the crappy fixtures off that old cannon in no time at all. Then I bought actual Schedule-40 fittings from the sprinkler shop down the straight. Cost an extra $5, but it's worth it for the safety.

Then, since it was our anniversary, Eri helped me put it all together. We used the high-pressure "blue glue" and made certain to twist at least 90 degrees as we inserted everything. We also redesigned it to use fewer fittings, which made the twisting phase a lot easier.

Working together, and being extremely careful, it took us about two hours all told. We left it in the sun, and after about 5 hours of curing, I'll try it at tonight's performance of Hairspray!